Facts have proved that technological content and combat effectiveness are two dimensional concepts.
On the way to the crash site with Group A, Zheng Hao soon came into contact with the group of Enterprise soldiers and immediately engaged in a fierce exchange of fire with them.
At this moment, Zheng Hao felt a hint of obvious difficulty.
Those people are very strong!
And it is the kind that can be seen with the naked eye!
The smooth progress of Group B made him misjudge the situation, and even made an unnecessary misjudgement - they could easily get rid of these people with their equipment advantages, and then intercept the abnormal mother body without anyone noticing.
However, the advantage of Group B was because of the number of people, six against three and a sniper supporting outside the battlefield.
The situation was completely different on his side.
The soldiers on the opposite side dispersed in groups of three, supporting the defense line with alternating firepower, and then he found a team around his flank.
These people's use of tactics was almost as smooth as flowing water, without even a trace of pause or hesitation.
The tacit cooperation made people's scalp numb!
The evenly matched battle situation quickly took a sharp turn for the worse with the death of a team member. The gunshots from all directions made him feel that he was not fighting against a group of ten scattered soldiers, but a well-trained army.
These people are definitely not employees of the company!
They are more like professional soldiers!
Just like they are professional in exploring ruins, they are also professional in fighting!
"Captain! The firepower of these people is too strong! I'm afraid we can't hold on for long alone--"
A team member who was shot in the leg shouted in horror, and fired at the earth slope in the distance with the rifle in his hand, trying to suppress the soldiers advancing forward.
However, the sound of his gunshot did not even last for three seconds, and a high-explosive grenade fired by an RPG dragged a thin tail flame and hit the earth slope in front of him.
The blast and the fragments hit his chest, sending him flying from behind the earth slope, and he fell to the ground unconscious like a rag.
"Liangping! Damn!"
Seeing another teammate die, Zheng Hao's eyes turned red in an instant, and he pounded his fist into the earth heavily, but there was nothing he could do.
The voice of the deputy leader of Group B came from the communication channel.
"Captain, the mother body has mutated! It has split into dozens of tentacles that entangle the team leader! Zhao Xiao has also been controlled by them... We need support!"
Seven against three, one has been eliminated, but he was killed in return!
Although he still had a Group C on standby on the tracked vehicle, he knew that even if he used the last reserve team, it would be useless.
Perhaps after discovering that the "swarm" failed to hit, he should have decisively ordered a retreat...
These people were obviously not something they could deal with!
Zheng Hao gritted his teeth and finally squeezed out that sentence from between his teeth.
"Retreat!"
...
After paying the price of four casualties, the academy team that raided the crash site seemed to finally realize that they had hit a wall.
"They retreated."
Kuangfeng's voice came from the communication channel.
He was watching the opponent's movements from the drone's perspective.
Aiming at the gray-white smoke in front, the murderous dagger leaning against the bunker looked at Lao Bai beside him, eager to try.
"Boss, do you want to catch up?"
He wanted to catch up.
These guys are weaker than expected, and it would be a pity not to explode their gold coins.
Lao Bai thought for a while and said.
"No need, the mission is important."
The enemy vehicle is just five kilometers away.
According to Kuangfeng's judgment, it doesn't look like a tank or a rocket car, but more like a large SUV that crosses swamp terrain.
The identity of these people in the academy is self-evident.
Judging from the equipment they carry, it doesn't look like it's for attacking people, but more for attacking alien equipment, so it can be inferred that this team is most likely a "scientific expedition team".
It's not difficult to get rid of this group of people, but this place is too close to the Wandering Swamp, and it may not be a good thing to make the other party angry.
It's enough to teach them a lesson.
As the head of the corps, he needs to consider more things.
At present, the task of the manager is more important, and they need to avoid unnecessary trouble as much as possible.
All the good names are taken by dogs: "What if those people come back?"
Lao Bai raised his chin and pointed to the two people lying on the ground dying not far away.
"Aren't there prisoners here? Bandage them... By the way, you go offline and go to the official website to update the task status."
The murderous dagger pressed down the muzzle with a helpless look and turned off the safety.
"Okay."
The battle entered the stage of cleaning the battlefield.
Only two of the four people left by the academy died, one of whom was a bionic man and the other was a cyborg, and some of their parts could be recycled.
The guy who was hit by the RPG before was lucky enough to survive, but he just fainted, which was incredible to the players.
In addition, there was a female explorer who was shot in the abdomen and right leg, and basically lost her ability to move.
There were medical kits in the "Orca" transport plane, including sprays to stop bleeding, bandages to accelerate wound healing, and oral reagents to accelerate hematopoiesis, produced by Kangmao Group in Ideal City.
Lao Bai asked Sun Ze for a few medical kits and distributed them to his teammates, and then walked towards the female explorer who was leaning against the crooked tree.
Looking at the man walking towards her, Chen Yutong's originally weak breathing became rapid, and her eyes shrank back in fear, but soon she took a breath of cold air because of the pain of the wound.
Staring at the burly big guy in front of her, she said in a trembling voice.
"What do you want to do..."
Almost everyone on the planet, even whether they are human or not, regards them as "hot cakes". Even if they are not interested in their knowledge, bionic prostheses can be sold for a lot of money.
She has heard about how miserable the researchers who fell into the hands of other forces ended up, but she never thought that she would encounter such a situation one day.
What will happen next, she dare not think about it...
However, the man in front of her did not do anything to her.
"Bandage your wound, or you can do it yourself."
"Bandage?" Chen Yutong looked at him warily, with obvious distrust on her face, "Why... do you want to save me?"
Lao Bai said casually.
"No reason, our army does not kill prisoners."
Except for mutants and predators who throw people into the frying pan to cook.
Blame it on the fact that this game is too realistic, and he sometimes can't help but get fired.
But in fact, since the mine in Qingshi County opened, except for mutants who are still killed without mercy, they have rarely executed predators.
Leaders who refused to surrender would be hanged for public display, while some of the minions were mostly sentenced to hundreds of years of hard labor based on the confessions of the victims.
As for the raw materials downstream of the active substance and nutrient paste industry chain, they have basically been replaced by slime mold fruiting bodies. Although the conversion rate is not high, the quantity is large and cheap.
Chen Yutong looked at the man in power armor in front of her blankly.
When did the company have this tradition?
Seeing that this guy still had the strength to speak, Lao Bai threw the medical kit next to her.
"Since you can still move, I won't help you."
Wearing power armor, he couldn't control his strength well.
After taking a look at the medical kit, Chen Yutong hesitated and stretched out his hand. When he lowered his head, he whispered thank you.
Lao Bai didn't care. He walked to the side to take a look at the condition of another prisoner, and then went straight to the outside of the temporary camp.
The team members who went to support Group 5 have returned.
In addition to the pilot and "his SSSR-class battle pet", a sniper with a mouth full of mud and a bionic man tied up like a dumpling were also brought back.
"These guys... are indeed from the academy." Looking at the expressionless bionic man, Sun Ze's face showed a surprised expression and he muttered to himself.
Hearing this, Lao Bai looked at the pilot curiously and asked.
"How did you judge this?"
Sun Ze smiled and said.
"This is too easy. The bionic man of Kangmao Group is much more advanced than them."
Lao Bai was stunned.
He had never seen the performance of the company's bionic man on the battlefield. This was their first head-on confrontation with the bionic man.
More advanced than the academy's...
Is this true?
Xuan Feng lay expressionless, not really caring about this insignificant ridicule.
Zhao Xiao, who was standing next to him, was a little excited. When he heard someone mocking the college's technology, and even using enterprises as examples, he jumped up like a rabbit whose tail was stepped on.
He spat the mud in his mouth and glared at the arrogant guy.
"Bullshit! You... are not more advanced than us!"
"What else?" Sun Ze glanced at the guy and couldn't help laughing. He continued in a teasing tone, "You can't even make a simulated emotion program and expression adjustment plug-in, how can you talk about being advanced?"
"Keep talking nonsense! Who told you that we can't do it? You stole the core AI technology from us!" Zhao Xiao's face flushed with anxiety, and he argued, "We are just too lazy to waste time on such meaningless things."
What's the point of giving robots so many fancy expressions!
Isn't it enough for things like bionic people to work? !
Sun Ze picked his ears and said disdainfully.
"Stealing is fine... that was so many years ago. Even the Endpoint Cloud has been updated to more than a dozen new versions. Only you still remember it. By the way, if you really want to talk about it, the AI core is also the technology of Human Union. At most, it is temporarily kept by you. How can it be yours?"
Although the old events of a century and a half ago are rarely mentioned, they are not a secret in Ideal City. If you spend some time, you can even check the records of the unbanned actions on the Endpoint Cloud.
However, even if he had learned about it out of interest, he had no interest in studying this past in depth.
The East Coast Research Institute was originally funded by the Production Department. Water, electricity, food, research consumables and consumer goods all came from the Production Department. Their ancestors just took away what belonged to them.
In a broader sense, the bankruptcy of the Post-War Reconstruction Committee was not the responsibility of a single person.
It just went through its life cycle like a big tree.
He felt that even if there were no Willant people and long winters, there would be other problems that would cause them, who were not on the same path, to diverge.
Maybe one day in the future. Ideal City will also disappear in the long river of history, just like the once flourishing Human Union.
But to be honest, he really doesn't care.
Even the sun is not eternal, how can mortals dare to say forever.
He doesn't want to stretch his neck to look too far ahead, nor does he want to be a person who twists his neck backwards. Now the road under his feet is good enough.
When he returns to Ideal City, he can go to the Endpoint Cloud to brag - oh no, share his new life.
In this mission, he not only took the same flight with the legendary Burning Legion, but also fell from the sky with them.
Isn't this much more awesome than 2000 points in "Battle Royale"?
However, the attitude of the prisoner still made him a little unhappy, so he looked at Lao Bai who was standing aside to watch the show.
"Can I give him two kicks?"
After all, he didn't catch the prisoner himself, so he asked out of politeness.
Lao Bai shrugged and said with a grin.
"We can't abuse the prisoners, but I can let him go temporarily and let you fight fairly."
Sun Ze shrank his neck.
"That's fine."
Zhao Xiao looked eager to try, but he didn't expect the guy on the line to be scared and clicked his tongue in disappointment.
However, I don't know if it was intentional, but this disdainful smacking of lips happened to be heard by Sun Ze, and the two started a war of words again.
But it was obvious.
In terms of swearing and being sarcastic, it was obvious that the corporate employees who surfed on the endpoint cloud for many years were more experienced.
It was completely Zhao Xiao's one-sided blushing.
Anyway, it seemed that the plane could not be repaired, and the players watching the excitement nearby also discussed it with interest.
Old Six in the Corner: "I think enterprises are more advanced! Those bionic people not only understand art, but also know how to buy things and pay."
"That may not be the case. I think that mantis knife is more powerful. I almost died..." Talking about the extraordinary things in a casual tone, Ye Shi stretched his neck and looked around, and suddenly found that someone was missing. "I wanted to ask just now, where is Quitting?"
Old Six in the Corner: "Hey, that guy is gone again, did you just notice? Wait, why did I say again?"
"Gone?" Ye Shi was stunned for a moment. He really didn't pay close attention just now. Then he asked, "Where is the tool brother?"
The sixth man in the corner smiled embarrassedly: "That guy was shot twice in the leg. When we were in the reed marsh just now, he asked me to kill him... and asked me not to tell everyone."
Ye Shi couldn't help but said: "Damn! What a waste."
The sixth man in the corner smiled shyly and said: "For intelligence department, it's normal to be weak. Please understand."
Lost Mengxin: "Hahahaha!"
Kuangfeng: "..."
Chen Yutong looked at these people nervously.
Seeing the two sets of recycled exoskeletons, she guessed that most of them were dead, but she didn't understand why these people could still laugh.
What made her even more nervous was that Zhao Xiao.
This guy got into an argument with the employees of that enterprise, and the more he cursed, the worse it got. She was really worried about what these people would do to them.
The only thing that surprised her was what the man in the power armor said just now.
'Are they not in the same group as the enterprise? '
Chen Yutong thought to herself.
However, whether it was or not, their mission seemed to have failed, and it seemed that there was little point in studying this now…
In a corner not far away, Luo Yu touched Xiao Yu's head comfortingly.
"Okay, don't be depressed… That guy is not an organic being, so it's normal that he can't be eaten. You can control it, which has helped me a lot. By the way, don't put everything you pick up into your mouth, what if you get a stomachache!"
The brothers of the Burning Corps changed the rope to tie up the iron lump, so it didn't need to continue to tie it up with tentacles.
Xiao Yu still had a depressed expression on his face, and muttered to himself.
"Eh…"
It still couldn't understand.
Why can't I eat that thing?
At this time, Killing Dagger, who had just gone offline to report the progress of the mission, walked towards the crowd.
"New mission!"
Lao Bai immediately looked at him and asked.
"What did the manager say?"
Killing Dagger said helplessly.
"The manager said... let us wait near the crash site."
Lao Bai frowned.
"I'm afraid we can't stay here for too long... Have you told him about the exchange of fire with the Academy exploration team?"
"I did, and he also praised us for doing a good job in the mission pop-up window..." Killing Dagger smiled embarrassedly and continued, "Anyway, he is busy negotiating with the enterprise to see if he can convince them to send another plane over... But the enterprise seems to be shocked. They didn't expect to lose a plane."
It's okay if it's done well.
Lao Bai looked at him blankly and asked in a low voice.
"Ah, this... doesn't matter, right?"
"The manager said it doesn't matter if the pilot is fine," Killing Dagger glanced at the cerebral palsy who was still arguing with the captive, "The enterprise means that if the plane can't be repaired, it doesn't matter if it explodes, but the pilot must be alive, otherwise they won't take risks for us again... This is the bottom line."
The players around were stunned.
After a long while, Ye Shi scratched his head and glanced reluctantly at the transport plane, as well as the co-pilot who was scratching his head at the manual next to the transport plane.
He finally couldn't help but complain.
"My God... Just throw it away if the engine is broken."
This is such a waste!
...
The edge of the Golden Lizard Kingdom.
A man in luxurious clothes stood on the sand dunes, followed by a row of dismounted cavalry in bright and beautiful clothes.
His name is Blair Golden Lizard, the prince of the Golden Lizard Kingdom.
Looking at the tracked vehicle moving in the distance, he smiled happily and opened his arms from a distance.
"Welcome! Friends from afar! On behalf of the Golden Lizard Royal Family, I welcome you!"
The angular tracked vehicle in the distance seemed out of place with the more than 100 cavalrymen behind Blair, but it was not out of place against the background of the wasteland.
The car stopped on the sand dunes.
Li Ke got off the car, walked in front of the noble-looking man, smiled slightly and stretched out his right hand, replacing the hug with a handshake.
"B-level researcher Li Ke, I extend my greetings to you on behalf of the Special Project Group of the Academy's External Affairs Department."
Blair didn't care that the B-level researcher didn't hug him, but was surprised by the level of the visitor this time.
Generally speaking, A and B-level researchers rarely leave the academy, let alone leave the Wandering Swamp. It seems that there have been only two visits to welcome B-level researchers in the history of the Golden Lizard Dynasty.
"We have prepared a palace for you to stay in... Please follow me," suddenly, his eyes fell on the tracked vehicle, as if he remembered something, and hurriedly smiled embarrassedly, "Of course, you stay in the car... We will lead the way for you."
Li Ke smiled and nodded.
"Then I'd rather obey you than be respectful."
The college has not remained unchanged over the years. At least in the matter of adapting to local customs, they have "sacrificed" a lot.
A long time ago, they suffered from their inflexibility and lack of attention to politics, and their property was seized by two rebellious sons.
The college, which escaped into the wandering swamp, carried out a series of painful reforms under the leadership of Dr. Conclusion. On the basis of attaching importance to academics, it strengthened cooperation with the outside world, and established the Foreign Affairs Department and the Internal Affairs Department, two administrative departments parallel to the Investigation Department and the Research Department.
According to Dr. Conclusion's guiding ideology, they have used some "simple technologies" to win over a group of weaker survivor settlements over the past 150 years, and established a "Science Committee" with the academy as the core in the Wandering Swamp.
Under the framework of the Science Committee, they can absorb fresh blood from the affiliated survivor settlements to become grassroots officers in the academy, share limited technology in exchange for the "primary industry" and "secondary industry" of the vassal, and build it into the academy's moat by relying on the dependence of those survivor settlements on the academy.
The Golden Lizard Kingdom is one of the academy's moats and one of the greatest achievements of the Foreign Affairs Department since its establishment.
The food it produces not only supplies the academy, but also supplies the academy's other "technical allies" in the Wandering Swamp.
Today, the war in Luoxia Province has seriously affected food production. In particular, a nuclear bomb was even detonated last month, which made people in the Science Committee panic.
Many people are worried that the storm sweeping the desert will spread radioactive dust to the farmland of Oasis No. 8.
Although such concerns seem a bit funny in the wasteland, and everyone has some of them these days, in order to appease the anxious children, the chief technical officer of the academy did some necessary work after listening to the report of the Science and Technology Committee, and handed over the task of mediating the war to the Foreign Affairs Department.
To be honest, Li Ke felt that this was difficult.
With the current posture of the Enterprise "beating the Legion by the head", even his bionic assistant felt that the probability of a full-scale war was close to 60%.
Maybe by the beginning of next spring, a tide of clones will rush into Luoxia Province with the strategic nuclear reserves of the Legion.
But even so, he felt that if he did nothing, the little legacy left by his ancestors in Luoxia Province might not last for a few years.
A good choice is to persuade the Enterprise to stop while it is ahead.
However, according to the pilot named Yukar, the Legion was not beaten by the Enterprise, but was beaten black and blue by a group of united wastelanders.
This was completely beyond his expectations.
Even if the Legion's deployment in Luoxia Province is weak, it is still the Legion that dominates the west of the Central Continent.
Those guys fight day and night with the barbarians, mutants, and aliens they call, how can they not defeat a group of wastelanders.
He once suspected that Yukar was lying.
But he really couldn't analyze the motive of that guy's lie, so he decided to go to the vassal state to understand the actual situation before making the next plan.
If it is true as Yukar said, it is the "Alliance" that is leading this war, and the enterprise is just fanning the flames behind the scenes...
It is obviously much easier to persuade a regional survivor force to stop fighting than to persuade their old enemies to stop fighting.
Li Ke returned to the car and signaled the driver to follow the group of cavalry to continue moving forward.
But at this moment...
He suddenly received a call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"Failed?!"
Li Ke sat up suddenly from the chair, with surprise written all over his face.
Impossible.
The "Beacon" team is well-known in the Containment Project Group of the Investigation Department. They are experts in exploring ruins.
How could they not even deal with a half-dead gnawer and its mother body?
Realizing that the situation might be more complicated than he thought, Li Ke frowned slightly and continued to ask without stopping.
"What is the situation?"
The other end of the communication channel continued.
"According to the captain of the Beacon team, they encountered the Enterprise's transport plane... A group of people came down from it and intercepted the mother body. And all signs show that the mother body should be related to the Enterprise. Not only did it not attack the employees of the Enterprise, but it also helped the employees of the Enterprise capture one of our android operators."
"The Enterprise's plane?!"
Li Ke was stunned, and his face quickly became serious.
Although he was reluctant to make too much interpretation, the appearance of the Enterprise's plane near the Wandering Swamp was not a friendly sign.
Especially since they were secretly researching those mutant slime molds...
He pressed his index finger between his eyebrows and thought for a moment.
"Can the captured bionic man be contacted?"
"No... They should have wrapped it up with some metal object, or removed its communication chip."
That's right.
The other party is not a fool.
Li Ke closed his eyes and thought for a long time.
His first priority is to mediate the war.
As for the mother body... Although he is very interested, if it was made by the enterprise, this matter is beyond his authority and can only be handed over to the director of the Foreign Affairs Department or even the chief technology officer of the college to decide how to deal with it.
"Don't act rashly on this matter. Let the beacon team stop the action and stand by, and don't expose our identity."
The other end of the communication channel hesitated.
"But... we have shot down their plane."
The corner of Li Ke's mouth twitched.
"It's okay. Even if you leave that kind of industrial waste alone, it will cause problems... Maybe they dropped it by themselves."
A bitter laugh came from the other end of the communication channel.
"We have prisoners in their hands."
"Bionic man?"
"No... It's an E-level operator, maybe two or three, I'm not sure. They retreated too hastily and didn't have time to confirm the status of their teammates."
This bunch of useless people who are more trouble than help!
Li Ke couldn't help but curse in his heart, took a deep breath, and tried to lower his soaring blood pressure.
However, at this moment, he had completely forgotten that it was he who ordered that the mother body must be captured.
Prisoners...
It's really a problem.
The AI of the academy can guarantee absolute loyalty, but humans are not necessarily loyal, not to mention an E-level.
Fortunately, the E-level should not be able to grasp the complete information of the mission, and even if they are interrogated, they probably can't ask anything sensitive.
The first priority now is "war mediation."
As for the matter of the Matrix…
Without the authorization of the Chief Technology Officer, even if he wanted to rescue the prisoners, he couldn't do anything with the authority he had. He couldn't send another exploration team over.
The Investigation Department would never agree.
Li Ke slowly said, tapping the armrest of the seat with his index finger.
"Only those who are recognized are prisoners."
There was silence on the other end of the communication channel for a while.
"Yes…"